China E-Commerce
Record: Over 800K Weibo posts first minute of year of the horse
More than 34 million Weibo users interacted during the Spring Festival Gala and posts referring to the festival reached 45.41 million in a little more than four hours. It was, however, in the first minute of the New Year of the horse that the new record was set. 863 408 posts were published – compared to the previous year, when 808 298 posts reached the Weibo web. The first day of this year’s Chinese Spring Festival took place on the 31st of January.
Source: Xinua Net
China E-Commerce
Taobao will reward users who discover "hacker loopholes" with 50K RMB
A loophole that could be used to hack accounts was discovered on E-commerce site Taobao. Through the loophole hackers would be able to gain access of all sorts of information including account balances, transaction records, shipping addresses and other sensitive private details. The vulnerability has supposedly been fixed, but users still worry that the privacy hazard will trigger a new wave of security threats. Taobao officials insist on having eliminated eventual risks and promise to honor alarming users who notifies the company about any future breaches with 50 000 yuan straight from the company’s reward fund.
Source: News 163
China E-Commerce
Tencent takes 20% stakes of daily deals-app Dianping
Tencent has announced that they are going to take a 20 percent stake in Dianping, the Chinese listings portal that also offer daily deals. This partnership will invite a lot of Dianping content (consumer reviews, online restaurant reservations and take-out ordering services) to Tencent’s two giant social networks; WeChat and QQ. WeChat is already covering mobile payments, taxi- and cinema bookings – which will make it an even stronger E-commerce platform. Alibaba might have to step it up if they want Alipay to remain China’s top e-wallet service.
Source: Finance iFeng
China E-Commerce
Alibaba Integrates Hong Kong’s Octopus Card
If you’ve ever visited or lived in Hong Kong, you already know how ubiquitous and essential the contactless smart card is. Hong Kongers are hyper-efficient, and with over 95% of the SAR’s population using it to speed up various daily necessities like public transportation, convenience store transactions, buying food at popular fast food restaurants, and even school attendance, it’s safe to say that the Octopus card is absolutely integral to the lifestyle. Clearly, the people at Alibaba have realized this and are taking the opportunity to capitalize on that fact. It will soon be possible for Hong Kong residents to use their Octopus cards for shopping on Taobao, making the activity a matter of simply using their mobile Octopus apps to scan codes on Taobao. This marks a big step for Alibaba in terms of international expansion, as most of its business still happens in the mainland.
Source: Wall Street Journal
China E-Commerce
Mobile: China aims for 50 million 4G subscribers by the end of 2014
China’s Department of Communications Development announced that commercial 4G services will be established in more than 300 cities by the end of the year. Constructing the relatively new Chinese network, which was switched on in mid-December, will take place during two phases in 2014. Ultimately resulting in about 500 000 base stations throughout the country, and between 30 to 50 million 4G subscribers. 30M being the minimum goal and 50M being the aim. China had around 417 million 3G subscribers at the end of 2013.
Source: Nandu